The First Conspiracy

by Brad Meltzer

  Thomas Hickey, Irishman, formerly of Wethersfield, Connecticut, with dark hair, dark complexion, and sturdy build, walks to the foot of the gallows, at which point he’s led up to the low platform.

  Joining him, there are two people: a chaplain and the Provost Marshal, who today is tasked with administering the most serious form of punishment there is.

  Most of the written records of the event by eyewitnesses describe the vast crowd size and the impressive array of soldiers. Only a very few onlookers are close enough to observe the human drama of what transpires in the final minutes. One of those who is close enough and later describes it in writing is the young army surgeon, William Eustis, who stands and watches in formation among his fellow enlisted men.

  As Eustis relates it, Thomas Hickey maintains an air of defiance; at least, he does until the very end. Eustis writes:

  He appeared unaffected and obstinate to the last, except that when the Chaplain took him by the hand under the Gallows and bade him adieu, a torrent of tears flowed over his face; but with an indignant scornful air he wiped ’em with his hand from his face, and assumed the confident look.

  The tears are gone. But Hickey’s confident look will be short lived.

  There is no record of whether any final sentence or formal proclamation is read aloud by the Provost Marshal, but Eustis adds one more surprising detail to his description: some final words from Hickey.

  Words that, at first anyway, are puzzling.

  Eustis writes of Hickey’s last moment. “With his last breath the fellow told the spectators, that unless General Greene was very cautious, the Design would as yet be executed on him.”

  Eustis assumes, in his written recollection of the day, that Hickey refers to Gen. Nathanael Greene—one of Washington’s favorite generals, currently stationed in Long Island.

  Word would later spread of this anecdote, and for many years the accepted wisdom was that Hickey must have borne some personal grudge against General Greene, or somehow blamed Greene for his own terrible circumstances.

  The problem, however, is that none of it makes sense. General Greene’s only particular role in uncovering the plot was his oversight of the midnight arrest of Mayor David Mathews. There’s no other way in which Greene played a part in the arrest of the Life Guards or the investigation of the case. He had nothing to do with the court-martial. In fact, because General Greene has been almost entirely stationed on Long Island since the army traveled from Boston, Thomas Hickey was probably rarely, if ever, anywhere near him.

  So why would Thomas Hickey feel such hatred for Nathanael Greene that he would single him out in the final moment before his own death? And if he was referring to the general stationed on Long Island, it’s hard to fathom what Hickey meant by saying that the “the Design would as yet be executed on him.”

  A much more likely explanation is that Hickey’s final words weren’t referring to General Greene at all. Rather, he must have actually been speaking about his fellow Life Guard and coconspirator, the drummer William Green.

  Eustis, the army surgeon, probably had never heard of William Green, and simply assumed that when Hickey uttered the word “Green,” he was referring to the best-known Greene in the army. So when Eustis later wrote his account of the day, he used the words “General Greene” as part of that assumption.

  Thus, it seems more likely that Hickey was really expressing his rage toward William Green. If so, that fact may help explain, indirectly, how it was that Hickey ended up being singled out for punishment among the Life Guards to begin with.

  Very possibly, the conspiring Life Guards all agreed never to inform on one another; indeed, when they were “qualified” to be in the scheme they each had to take a vow of secrecy regarding the plot.

  Perhaps William Green, once authorities interrogated him, realized the gravity of his situation and chose to offer testimony against his fellow conspirator Thomas Hickey. This would provide the authorities something they really wanted: a clear guilty party, with strong testimony to support the case. Hickey, at least as far as the records show, never mentioned Green’s name to authorities before or during his court-martial; nor did he try to make the case that it was Green, and not himself, who was the leader among them.

  In other words, if the Life Guards all had vowed not to inform on one another, Hickey may have kept the vow and Green did not. In this scenario, perhaps Hickey realized only after receiving his death sentence that Green had betrayed him. This would explain Hickey’s otherwise cryptic statement just moments before his execution.

  In any case, Hickey’s final words don’t linger in the air for long. At exactly eleven o’clock, the Provost Marshal secures the noose around Thomas Hickey’s neck—and the vast crowd of onlookers watches as the platform drops and the soldier’s life ends.

  Thomas Hickey, of George Washington’s Life Guards, is the first soldier to be executed for treason in the Revolutionary War. With almost twenty thousand spectators—soldiers and citizens alike—Hickey’s hanging is also, at that time, the largest public execution ever to take place in North America.

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  In the wake of Hickey’s hanging, the first army document to allude to the execution is a rather grim one. It’s the formally executed warrant for the soldier’s punishment, now signed by the Provost Marshal, and with the following language:

  By virtue of, and in obedience to, the foregoing warrant, I have this day, at the time and place therein ordered and directed, caused Thomas Hickey, the prisoner within mentioned, to suffer death in the way and manner therein prescribed, and accordingly return this warrant fully executed.

  This official notice at least brings the grisly event to a formal close.

  Of course, after George Washington returns from the dark spectacle, he must also make some statement about the dramatic event to his army and officers, to reinforce the terrible gravity of what they’ve all witnessed—and to make sure the harsh public display sends the message he intends. Within hours after the hanging, he sends a general order about the matter, for every officer and soldier to see. Here’s how he characterizes the scene they’ve all just witnessed:

  The unhappy fate of Thomas Hickey, executed this day for Mutiny, Sedition and Treachery; the General hopes will be a warning to every soldier, in the army, to avoid those crimes, and all others, so disgraceful to the character of a soldier, and pernicious to his country.

  Brief, solemn, and to the point. But then, in the same paragraph, Washington adds one more line that takes his statement in an unexpected direction:

  And in order to avoid those crimes the most certain method is to keep out of the temptation of them, and particularly to avoid lewd women, who, by the dying confession of this poor criminal, first led him into practices which ended in an untimely and ignominious death.

  Wait. “Lewd women”?

  Of all the mysteries left in the wake of the plot against George Washington, this final line in his June 28 general order may be the most baffling. To whom, exactly, is the Commander referring?

  In the entire records of the Committee on Conspiracies’ investigation of the plot, including several dozen arrests and examinations, there is not a single mention of any woman, let alone a “lewd woman”—in the language of the day usually meaning a prostitute—who played a role leading Hickey into the scheme. Nor is there any mention of any such woman in the records of the New York Provincial Congress, or of the army’s court-martial.

  Could Washington be obliquely referring to his mysterious former housekeeper, Mary Smith, who was so suddenly removed on suspicion of being involved in the plot? After all, one scenario is that she was secretly conspiring with the handful of Life Guards posted at Mortier’s estate, where Washington usually sleeps and dines.

  While not totally impossible, this seems highly unlikely. Washington has maintained absolute silence and discretion so far regarding his fired housekeeper, so it would be very strange if he were suddenly to allude to her in a general order for the entire Co
ntinental army to read or hear.

  What’s more, this housekeeper, whatever her politics or schemes, was a middle-aged woman who had been hired based on recommendations from aristocratic families who had employed her in the past. It seems inconceivable that Washington would refer to her as a “lewd woman.”

  Is it possible that Hickey made some sort of “dying confession” that Washington was privy to, either before or at the time of his execution, that referred to a woman who lured him into the scheme? Perhaps.

  If so, though, it remains strange that there is no other reference anywhere to such a woman or such a confession, nor is there even a clear place in the known narrative of the plot in which “lewd women” could play a role.

  One other explanation—and probably the most likely—is that George Washington is simply using the opportunity of the moment to do what he often does: urge and scold the soldiers to stay out of trouble, to follow laws and regulations, and to conduct themselves safely and honorably.

  Few aspects of the soldiers’ behavior in New York City have appalled Washington so much as their frequent and repeated trips to visit the red-light district of the so-called Holy Ground. Maybe Hickey was known to be a customer there, and Washington saw a good opportunity to link the debauchery and crime of the neighborhood with Thomas Hickey’s terrible fate.

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  Even today, it’s hard to know how the soldiers and officers received Washington’s message about their fellow soldier’s swift punishment.

  However, early signs indicate that the event of the hanging itself—coming so soon after rumors about the plot were flying—met with a kind of steadfast approval by the witnesses and the public in general.

  One newspaper writer who attended the event quickly filed a report for a local broadsheet called the Constitutional Gazette, using some arcane rhetoric against the British to augment his depiction of what happened.

  This forenoon, was executed in a field … in the presence of near twenty thousand spectators, a soldier belonging to his Excellency General Washington’s guards, for mutiny and conspiracy; being one of those who formed, and was soon to have put in execution, that horrid plot of assassinating the staff officers, blowing up the magazines … on the arrival of the hungry ministerial myrmidons.

  Like most other reports and discussions of the plot now emerging, this writer includes specific reference to an assassination plot, in this case against all the staff officers. Others who write about it specify Washington as the primary or sole target of assassination. For example, one civilian describes it this way:

  A hellish plot has been lately discovered at New York to murder General Washington and some other officers of the first rank, blow up the magazine, and spike the cannon.… It was to have been put in execution on the first arrival of the [British] Army.… One of General Washington’s guards has been put to death for being concerned in it. The Mayor of the city, and some others, are confined.… It is said the matter has been traced up to Governour Tryon.

  Clearly, by the day of Hickey’s death the narrative and accepted wisdom about the plot—believed by officers, soldiers, and citizens alike—is that the plot included a plan to kill George Washington, on the brink of battle.

  It’s on that same afternoon of Hickey’s execution—probably within a few hours of it—that William Eustis goes back to his headquarters and writes a detailed letter describing the event, sharing everything he knows or has heard about the plot that led to it. It’s in this letter that the young army surgeon will invent that truly memorable word:

  Their design was upon the first engagement which took place, to have murdered (with trembling I say it) the best man on earth: General Washington was to have been the subject of their unheard of SACRICIDE.

  Sacricide. Derived from the Latin, it means “slaughter of the sacred,” or “slaughter of the good.”

  Eustis goes on to write: “In order to execute their design upon our General, they had enlisted into their service one or two from his Excellency’s Life Guard, who were to have assassinated him.” Then he captures what was probably a widespread feeling in the army that day when he expresses horror that “any set of men could be so lost to every virtuous principle, and so dead to the feelings of humanity as to conspire against the person of so great and good a man as General Washington.”

  Another eyewitness to Hickey’s hanging that day was a young artillery captain from New York by the name of Alexander Hamilton. He had joined the New York militia in early 1776 while still finishing his term at King’s College, and now, aged only twenty-one, leads a unit in the Continental army. He has already gained some notice as a young officer of intelligence and dedication.

  Like most witnesses to Hickey’s death, Hamilton takes satisfaction in the harsh justice administered by the army in response to the plot. Regarding the other suspects, including the other Life Guards who are now confined, he writes: “It is hoped the remainder of those miscreants now in our possession will meet with a punishment adequate to their crimes.”

  While Hamilton and others may derive strength from the army’s swift response to the plot, an interesting question remains.

  What about George Washington himself?

  Washington never writes and apparently never talks about his actual feelings concerning the execution, beyond the carefully crafted general orders.

  Nevertheless, the revelations of the plot must have taken a toll on the Commander-in-Chief.

  On the day of Hickey’s hanging, it has been almost exactly a year since George Washington first arrived in Boston to take command of the Continental army. Although himself an inexperienced general, he took his command full of lofty notions of what an army is supposed to be. He truly believes in the codes of honor and character associated with serving, whether as a soldier or an officer.

  Since then, he has so often seen reality fall short of his noble ideals. Over and over, he finds that his own army is dirtier, drunker, has worse morale, and is more plagued by desertions, infighting, and bad behavior, than he had hoped.

  Now, a year later, at a time of genuine peril, he’s had to administer the most severe punishment against his own soldier for the ultimate military sacrilege: treason.

  Of course, it’s not just Thomas Hickey. The fact that so many colonists, perhaps hundreds in the region, have been lured to join Tryon’s secret army must be deeply frustrating, and distressing, at a time when the army needs as much public support as possible. Likewise, Washington and his officers’ inability to prevent nefarious plots from forming within their own army—let alone be ready to face another in battle—can hardly be reassuring.

  More than anything, this act of betrayal on the part of his own soldiers must weigh on Washington’s soul. Literally nothing could be further from the ideal of honor that he has tried to impart to his men. Whether or not Washington ever feared for his own life is immaterial. The sheer level of betrayal is profound and deep.

  These were the Life Guards. These are the men that he chose to defend him, men he trusted to protect his life, and now, in front of the whole army, they have shamed themselves and their unit with conduct that is not just disrespectful, but deplorable.

  So, in the hours after watching one of his favorite Life Guards dangle from the gallows, it’s hard to imagine that George Washington isn’t walking under a black cloud on this day, June 28, 1776.

  Yet, amidst all this darkness, what Washington doesn’t realize is that there will soon be a ray of extraordinary light.

  The Commander doesn’t know it yet, but even as he grapples with the ugly spectacle of one of his own soldiers being put to death, something else of great magnitude is also under way at this very moment.

  Unlike the death of Thomas Hickey—an event inspired by acts of treachery and treason—this other event is inspired by the most enlightened ideals.

  It’s not happening in New York City, where Washington’s fragile army braces for battle. It’s happening somewhere else.

  About two hundred mi
les away—in Philadelphia.

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  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

  June 1776

  It started—or it started for real, anyway—sometime back in April.

  At that point, the Continental Congress had been managing a budding war for more than nine months, supporting George Washington and his new army through the long siege of Boston, approving and authorizing payment and provisions and supplies, devising rules and regulations from scratch, and coordinating the various colonies to work together to support the war effort.

  Throughout this period, the delegates were also doing something else: grappling with the most profound political questions, debating the nature of government, and trying to determine the truest course for the future of the North American colonies in relation to their mother country, England.

  It’s remarkable in hindsight that in early 1776, more than half a year since the convening of the Second Continental Congress and the formation of the Continental army, the prevailing wisdom of the majority of delegates—and indeed the majority of colonists—was that the goal for raising arms was to change specific terms of the existing subservient relationship to the mother country.

  The delegates all agreed that the colonists needed a greater degree of self-governance and greater forms of representation for their citizens—and were generally united in making bitter complaints against Great Britain regarding repressive tax and trade policies.

  Yet, apart from a feisty minority in the Continental Congress known as the radicals, the delegates had mostly envisioned a future of greater rights and self-governance within the colonial framework—meaning that the North American colonies would always be answerable, ultimately, to Parliament and to the King.